Red Riding's version of it's grim up north

Red Riding - 1974, like Life on Mars, manages to all but airbrush the political atmosphere of that year (Shortcuts, G2, 9 March). You would never guess that 1974 was the year when the miners brought down the Heath government and the Ulster Unionists brought down power sharing in Northern Ireland. You would never guess that IRA bombs were exploding in London, Guildford, Birmingham - and even on the M62 in the West Riding. Not to mention two general elections, the three-day week, Watergate, the Vietnam war and the death of a student during clashes with the National Front in Red Lion Square.

Filmed in gritty, muted colours with bricks, smoke and smoking everywhere, and lacking the witty one liners of a good noir, the only red in Red Riding was, predictably, blood.Chris RatcliffeHebden Bridge, West Yorkshire

Before we all collapse from hyperventilation about Red Riding, what was all the excitement about? Yes, it's grim up north and there was a lot of fag smoke in the 1970s; yes, the camera work was good and the acting - with the caveat that the dialogue was often inaudible (which you expect these days). But the plot was so obscure that attention drifted and the outcome was boringly predictable once the rookie journalist had been rogered in the car park by nasty cops who arrived via Abu Ghraib. Thereafter you watched waiting for the naive lad to walk blindly straight into his next ordeal - which of course he did - and so on to the bleak final shots.

What was so unpleasant about the film was the pornographic fixation on torture for the sake of it. Is that what made it brilliant? Gratuitous violence plus boring bits of rumpy-pumpy does not make good drama. It wasn't very original either (cf Our Friends in the North). Were all the slavering critics trying to help Channel 4 out of its financial problems?Frank GraceIpswich, Suffolk